Hercule Poirot Books in Order: All 33 Novels + the Short Stories

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, The Teacup Sleuth earns from qualifying purchases — at no extra cost to you.

He is five foot four, obsessively tidy, convinced he is the greatest detective in Europe, and almost always right. Hercule Poirot arrived in print in 1920 as a Belgian refugee in an English village and left it in 1975 — and Agatha Christie gave him far more cases than she ever gave Miss Marple, which is why the question of where to begin genuinely matters here.

This autumn is a good moment to start him: 2026 marks fifty years since Christie’s death, and the British Library opens a major Christie exhibition on 30 October 2026. Below is every Hercule Poirot book in order — all 33 novels with first-publication years, the short story collections, the six authorised continuation novels, and an honest answer about which one to open first. Spoiler-free throughout.

Hercule Poirot Books in Order: All 33 Novels

Publication order, with first-publication years as given on Agatha Christie’s official site. Every entry is spoiler-free.

1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). Christie’s first published novel and Poirot’s debut: a Belgian refugee in an English village is asked to look into the poisoning of the wealthy mistress of the house. It also introduces Captain Hastings, who narrates most of the early books.
2. The Murder on the Links (1923). Poirot is summoned to northern France by a frightened millionaire who is already dead when he arrives, and runs straight into a French magistrate certain he has the answer.
3. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926). The book that made Christie famous and still the one readers argue about. Go in knowing nothing whatsoever; if you only ever read one Poirot, make it this.
4. The Big Four (1927). A thriller rather than a puzzle, assembled from magazine stories, with Poirot against an international criminal syndicate. Devoted fans rank it last in the series.
5. The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928). A famous ruby, a luxury train to the Riviera, and an heiress found dead in her compartment. Christie wrote it in the worst year of her life and never liked it.
6. Peril At End House (1932). A young woman who owns a Cornish clifftop house has survived three near-fatal accidents in three days. Brisk and tightly plotted.
7. Lord Edgware Dies (1933). US title: Thirteen at Dinner. An actress remarks at dinner that she would like her husband out of the way; shortly afterwards he is, and the alibi looks unbreakable.
8. Murder on the Orient Express (1934). Snowbound on a stranded train with a dozen strangers and one body. Probably the most filmed detective novel ever written — read it before you watch any version.
9. Three Act Tragedy (1934). A clergyman drops dead at a cocktail party where nobody present had the slightest reason to want him gone.
10. Death In The Clouds (1935). US title: Death in the Air. A passenger is killed in mid-air between Paris and Croydon, in a cabin where every suspect was in plain view — Poirot included, asleep in his seat.
11. Cards on the Table (1936). Four people suspected of past murders and four sleuths are invited to play bridge; the host does not survive the evening. The solution is read almost entirely from how the players bid.
12. Murder in Mesopotamia (1936). Narrated by a nurse at an archaeological dig in Iraq, drawn straight from the seasons Christie spent on site with her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan.
13. The ABC Murders (1936). A killer works alphabetically through English towns and victims, posting warnings to Poirot in advance. The best place to see the modern serial-killer plot in its original form.
14. Death On The Nile (1937). A Nile steamer, a honeymoon and a passenger list in which almost everyone is nursing a grievance. One of the richest of the travel mysteries.
15. Dumb Witness (1937). US title: Poirot Loses a Client. An elderly woman writes to Poirot about her suspicions and dies before the letter reaches him. Bob the wire-haired terrier is the best dog in the Christie canon.
16. Appointment With Death (1938). A tyrannical American matriarch dies in the heat at Petra and most of her family is quietly relieved.
17. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (1938). A rich and thoroughly unpleasant old man gathers his family for Christmas and is found dead behind a locked door. The traditional Christie choice for December.
18. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940). Poirot’s own dentist is found shot in his surgery an hour after Poirot left the chair — much better than its modest reputation.
19. Sad Cypress (1940). A courtroom-shaped mystery in which the obvious suspect is already standing trial and Poirot arrives late to take the case apart.
20. Evil Under The Sun (1941). A Devon island hotel, a guest everyone resents, and a body on the beach in broad daylight with half the hotel in view of it.
21. Five Little Pigs (1942). A woman asks Poirot to clear her mother of a murder committed sixteen years earlier, using nothing but the memories of five witnesses. Many readers call this Christie’s finest construction.
22. The Hollow (1946). US title: Murder after Hours. A country-house weekend of tangled affections ends in a shooting that Poirot finds suspiciously well arranged. Christie later rewrote it for the stage and cut him out of it altogether.
23. Taken at the Flood (1948). US title: There is a Tide. A country-house weekend of tangled affections ends in a shooting that Poirot finds suspiciously well arranged. Christie later rewrote it for the stage and cut him out altogether.
24. Mrs McGinty’s Dead (1952). Post-war England, a disputed inheritance and a young widow nobody in the family is willing to believe.
25. After the Funeral (1953). US title: Funerals are Fatal. A charwoman is murdered, her lodger is convicted, and Poirot takes miserable lodgings in the village to see whether the verdict holds. It introduces the novelist Ariadne Oliver, Christie’s affectionately unkind portrait of herself.
26. Hickory Dickory Dock (1955). Petty thefts in a London student hostel look like a prank until they stop being one. Lighter than most, with a very strong sense of its 1950s setting.
27. Dead Man’s Folly (1956). Petty thefts in a London student hostel look like a prank until they stop being one.
28. Cat Among the Pigeons (1959). A murder hunt staged for a village fete at a great house on the River Dart turns up a real body. The house is modelled on Greenway, Christie’s own holiday home in Devon.
29. The Clocks (1963). Half school story, half spy thriller: a revolution abroad, a missing fortune and two deaths at an exclusive girls’ school.
30. Third Girl (1966). A typist walks into a stranger’s front room and finds four clocks that do not belong there and a dead man nobody can identify.
31. Hallowe’en Party (1969). A child boasts at a Hallowe’en party about having once seen a murder, and is drowned in the apple-bobbing tub before the evening is over. Loosely adapted as the 2023 film A Haunting in Venice.
32. Elephants Can Remember (1972). Ariadne Oliver brings Poirot a decades-old family question: which of a dead husband and wife shot the other. The last Poirot novel Christie wrote.
33. Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case (1975). Written during the Second World War, locked away for thirty years and published a few months before Christie died. Poirot returns to Styles, where he started. Read it last — this is the one book where the order genuinely matters.

A note on years: books sharing a year are ordered differently by different lists, because UK and US editions often appeared months apart. Evil Under the Sun is the clearest case: Christie’s official site indexes it under 1940 but describes its release in June 1941.

Hercule Poirot Short Story Collections

Poirot also appears in dozens of short stories, and this is where completists come unstuck: the same stories were bundled differently on each side of the Atlantic. These are the five collections listed on Christie’s official site.

1. Poirot Investigates (1924). Eleven short cases narrated by Hastings; the US edition added three more.
2. Murder in the Mews (1937). Four pieces closer to novellas than stories, and the strongest writing in any Poirot collection.
3. The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories (1939). A mixed bag: some Poirot, some Parker Pyne, some Miss Marple.
4. The Labours of Hercules (1947). Twelve cases Poirot takes because each mirrors one of the labours of his mythological namesake. A great gift for a reader who thinks they have finished him.
5. The Under Dog and Other Stories (1951). Nine stories, originally an American collection.

If sorting that out sounds like work, a single-volume Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories gathers them together and is the shortcut we would take.

The Six New Poirot Novels by Sophie Hannah

With the Christie estate’s authorisation, British novelist Sophie Hannah has written six new Poirot mysteries. They are not Christie, but they are properly plotted — and the only place left to get a new Poirot case.

1. The Monogram Murders Sophie Hannah (2014)
2. Closed Casket Sophie Hannah (2016)
3. The Mystery of Three Quarters Sophie Hannah (2018)
4. The Killings at Kingfisher Hill Sophie Hannah (2020)
5. Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night Sophie Hannah (2023)
6. The Last Death of the Year Sophie Hannah (2025)

Christie wrote Poirot for the stage too: Black Coffee (1930) is her only original Poirot play.

Where to Start with Hercule Poirot

Poirot barely changes across fifty-five years, so there is no arc to spoil and no wrong door — only better and worse ones.

• Start with The Mysterious Affair at Styles if you like doing things properly. It is short, you meet Hastings, and it pays off beautifully when you reach Curtain.
• Start with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd if you want to understand why Christie is Christie — and read it before anyone spoils it for you.
• Start with The ABC Murders or Death on the Nile if you simply want a great mystery tonight.
• Do not start with The Big Four or The Mystery of the Blue Train; both are weak by her standards.
• Keep Curtain for last. It is the only Poirot that depends on the books before it.

For the other half of the Christie canon, see our guide to the Miss Marple books in order. For a modern village sleuth in the same tradition, try the Agatha Raisin books in order, and if you are new to the genre, start with our cozy mysteries for beginners.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Hercule Poirot books are there?

Thirty-three novels by Agatha Christie, plus five collections of her own Poirot short stories and one original play, Black Coffee. Sophie Hannah has added six authorised continuation novels since 2014.

Do I need to read the Hercule Poirot books in order?

No. Every novel is a self-contained case and none depends on the last. The one rule worth keeping is to read Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case at the end — it was written as a farewell and lands properly only if you already know him.

Which Hercule Poirot book should I read first?

The Mysterious Affair at Styles for the beginning, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd for the famous one, The ABC Murders for the cleverest puzzle. Avoid The Big Four and The Mystery of the Blue Train as openers.

Why do some Poirot books have two different titles?

American publishers routinely retitled Christie: Lord Edgware Dies became Thirteen at Dinner, Death in the Clouds became Death in the Air, The Hollow became Murder after Hours, Taken at the Flood became There is a Tide, After the Funeral became Funerals are Fatal.

One Last Thing

Fifty years after Christie’s death, the little Belgian with the moustache and the intolerable self-regard is still the most imitated detective in fiction. If you are starting the thirty-three this winter, we would love the company.

We post a cozy mystery series in reading order every week, plus new releases and seasonal reading lists. Come and join us on our Facebook Page and tell us which Poirot you started with.

Sources

Titles and first-publication years on this page follow the estate’s official Poirot reading list (PDF) published by the Agatha Christie estate, alongside its official story list, which can be sorted by first publication. UK and US first editions sometimes carry different titles and years; we use the UK first edition. If anything here is out of date, tell us in the comments and we will fix it.